


Small Steps in an Uncertain Direction

by hobijam



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author!AU, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hope, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Slice of Life, Suicide Attempt, i'm just trying to cover all my bases and get the trigger warnings tagged, the tags sound rough but this DOES NOT END IN DEATH, yixing and sehun are very much happy gay and in love at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:05:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobijam/pseuds/hobijam
Summary: Of one thing he is certain: Yixing has suffered enough. He truly believes this. But, the man that grabs his hand before the leap doesn't.Prompt #247 from the unfinished SprinkleofXing fest!





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> look out for trigger warnings! these include: in-depth discussion of suicidal thoughts as well as symptoms of schizophrenia, depiction of suicide attempts, minor character death (barely mentioned).

_ Do it,  _ Death whispers in Yixing’s ears. It’s voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, inside and outside of his head, created by his mind and by something else.  _ You’re ready now.  _

Yixing is standing on the wrong side of the railing. His heels are pressed to the ledge at the side of the bridge, the backs of his calves up against the metal bars that keep people from falling, jumping - whatever it is he plans on doing, really. This bridge is famous for it. Yixing supposes he should have picked a less cliché spot, maybe a different method, too. He’s not too fond of water, and doesn’t think drowning is the most painless way to die. But Death- it’s been insistent lately. It’s gravelly voice, male and female, human and demon, has been ringing in Yixing’s ears more often, with more urgency. 

_ Now is the time, Yixing. You are ready.  _

He wonders who he is doing this for more- is he listening to Death, doing just what it wants? Or is he listening to himself, putting an end to his own suffering, silencing the entity that resides in his head with his muddled thoughts? He hopes it’s the latter. He doesn’t want to think he’s a puppet, though he’s already given up his body. 

A frigid wind cuts through Yixing’s thin flannel. He shivers. He tests his grip, attempting to readjust it on the metal railing. His hands- the sweat of his palms- it’s frozen him to the metal, and he feels like he’s ripping his skin when he takes his hand away, wipes his brow. Squinting, he can’t even see the water underneath the bridge. It’s black as the night around him. The streetlamp that flickers above his head casts wan shadows, makes his hands look pale and translucent, like a ghost’s. 

Just outside the light, creatures watch him. Their beaded yellow eyes bore into his back. Their shadowy cloaks obscure their faces, if they have any, like an executioner’s mask. They’re waiting. Daring him. What Yixing’s lived in fear of for so long now support him. Maybe they, too, agree. Some people are not meant to live. Yixing is one of them. 

He takes a deep breath. Leans forward, inches his chest over the edge, over the black nothing underneath him. 

Why is he hesitating? 

He’s planned this. Wanted this, for so long. He’s dreamed of falling, the sharp crack his chest will make when he hits the smooth surface of the water. The suffocating silence that will surround him as he sinks. It’s comforted him in the way another would wrap up in a blanket. The thought of death- not Death, the thing that whispers to him, but just death- the end of life- has been his guide in the world, what’s ironically enough, gotten him out of bed in the mornings leading up to this night. 

So why wait? 

A car is coming up the road. He has to either do it now, or hide, wait for it to pass. It would be so easy. Just a simple relaxation of his grip, a small tip forward, and then: free-fall. But when he tries, his hands form claws, scrabbling along the railing, scratching around on the frost coated metal for any kind of purchase. 

_ Go, Yixing. _

He’ll do it, in ten breaths. They whoosh in and out of him, freezing air slicing his throat. 

Seven. 

The car pulls closer. Yixing will be gone before it reaches him. 

Four. 

His hands loosen from the railing. 

Two. 

He kicks a foot outwards, like he’ll step out into thin air. 

One. 

He lets go. 

Instead of falling, release, two arms wrap around his chest, warmer than Yixing thinks he’s ever been in his life. The air is knocked from his lungs as he’s slammed back against the metal guardrail, his breath whooshing out of his chest. Limply, he allows himself to be dragged over the bar, deposited onto the icy sidewalk because his legs can’t hold his weight anymore. 

A man’s face stares down at him, miles above, surrounded by the stars. His lips are drawn into a line, arms crossed. Where Yixing would expect sympathy, there is none. Anger boils under this man’s expression, making his eyebrows jump and his fingers twitch. 

“What the fuck?” He finally says. He kicks Yixing, lightly, with the toe of his shoe. “You were going to kill yourself?” 

Yixing doesn’t get off the ground, lets the cold seep into his back through his clothes. He’s too tired. Every bit of adrenaline-fueled energy that sparked in his veins is gone now, a bone-deep exhaustion setting in, almost tangible in its weight. “Yes.” He finally says. “I was.” 

The man runs his fingers through his already messy hair, agitated. It looks like it was gelled back at some point, but now it falls in chunks over his eyes. He looks young, but his expression is that of someone beyond their years. He pulls out his phone, starts to type in some numbers. 

_ He’s calling the police.  _ Death appears in Yixing’s head again.  _ He’s going to make you go back to the hospital.  _

Yixing panics. He rolls to the side, throwing his weight against the man and setting him off balance enough to drop his phone. It clatters onto the cement by Yixing’s head, and he grabs it, holds the object to his chest like treasure gold. 

“You can’t call the police!” 

The man squats down, almost effortlessly ripping the phone from Yixing’s weak grasp. “Well what do you want me to do? Leave, so you can kill yourself?” 

_ “Yes.”  _ Death replies, using Yixing’s voice. 

“Shameless.” The man says. He slides open his phone again, the screen illuminates his face in a harsh light. “Don’t you have a family? Somewhere to go home to?” 

“If you call the police, I’ll be locked away forever!” Yixing dodges the subject, pleading his case. “The psych ward here already knows me. I’ll be involuntarily committed to long-term if I go back there!” 

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” The man says. He puts down his phone, looks into Yixing’s eyes. His expression is unreadable. “You don’t look like you can take care of yourself.” 

“The hospital isn’t safe. If you make me go there, I will be tortured. They’ll put me through electroconvulsive therapy until I forget who I am.” Yixing begs. “I don’t- I can’t lose myself like that. I won’t be human anymore.” 

“You were just about to lose yourself! Lose your life!” The man runs his hand through his hair again, huffing when it still falls in his eyes. Nervous habit, Yixing guess in some far-off corner of his thoughts. 

“I’ll do anything else.” Yixing grabs the man’s knee, where it’s bent near his head, clasps it in his icy grip. “Just don’t make me go.” Tears leak out of his eyes. They slide down his temples, freezing in the night air. He is pure desperation. 

The man sighs, eyes dodging Yixing’s. His face is a turbulent display of the various thoughts whirring through his head, before he finally settles on something like sympathy, holds out a hand to Yixing. “Get off the ground. You’ll freeze.” 

Yixing allows himself to be yanked to his feet, and the man leads him to his car, keys still in the ignition and barely parked off the road. The man hears clacking, and looks with disdain at Yixing’s pockets. With a face like a scolding mother, he methodically empties the rocks out of each of Yixing’s pockets, throwing them to the ground. Numbly, Yixing observes himself being wrapped in the man’s coat, and tucked into the passenger seat of the car. The heat is on full blast, but he barely feels it. He’s so cold. The man buckles the seatbelt, and shuts the door on Yixing. Without a word, he falls into the driver’s seat, and pulls away from the curb. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but puts a hand on Yixing’s shoulder. 

“I’m Sehun.”

“Yixing.” He replies, at the same time Death tells him,  _ You’ve failed.  _

 

_ —- _

 

Yixing wakes up, which is not exactly part of his plans. He wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, in what is most likely an unfamiliar apartment. Could this be the afterlife? Swinging his feet out of bed, his toes curl against the cold vinyl floor. If it’s the afterlife, Yixing would expect at least to have heated floors, especially in January. 

He’s surprisingly calm, despite the situation. His memories drift back to him, speckled black with trauma, but they’re clear enough for him to realize where he is. The man- Sehun- he’s taken Yixing back to his apartment. Saved Yixing from jumping off the bridge.  _ Saved _ . Is that the right word? Yixing was suicidal then. Are you only suicidal when you’re about to commit suicide? Because Yixing still doesn’t want to live. He just… doesn’t have a way to avoid it, right now. Not with Sehun doing whatever it is he plans to do.

Yixing shuffles out of the bedroom, aware that he’s in a pair of sweats and a shirt that are too big for him, and distinctly not his. He wonders if Sehun even changed his boxers. He doesn’t want to check in front of the new acquaintance, though. 

The room outside of the bedroom is a small fusion of a kitchen and a living room, spotlessly clean, but still lived-in. The whole place smells thickly of coffee, probably not the instant, dollar store kind that Yixing drinks. It’s richer, like an expensive coffee shop’s. Sun streams through large paned windows, weak because it’s winter, but enough to cast light through the room without lamps. Sehun sits under these windows, at a small wood table, the kind that folds out to get bigger when friends are over. He’s working on something, rapidly typing into his laptop, and doesn’t seem to notice Yixing’s presence. He looks younger than he did last night. Yixing’s probably older than him, actually. His face is neutral, but the beginnings of a smile curls the edges of his lips upwards. 

_ Just leave.  _ Death makes an appearance in Yixing’s head, grating voice making him wince.  _ He’s not looking, you can go. There’s still a chance at your apartment.  _

“Shut up.” Yixing says, out loud by accident. 

Sehun looks up, surprise initially in his expression, dulled down to the benign smile of a host. “Good morning, Yixing.” He presses a few more keys on his laptop, and then stands to make his way past Yixing and into the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” 

_ He’s poisoned the food. He’s just like the rest of Them.  _

Yixing swats at the air around his head, a half-assed attempt at warding off the voice, before realizing he isn’t alone. He hopes Sehun didn’t see. “Yeah.” He finally says. “Yeah, I’m hungry.” 

Sehun pours a cup of coffee, presses it into Yixing’s hands before going to work in front of the stove. “I was waiting for you to get up so that I’d only have to cook once. I’m not too good at it, though. Eggs?” 

Yixing nods. He can’t cook very well himself, and he’s too hungry right now to care. Something about almost dying really takes it out of you. Sehun nods back at him, and the kitchen falls into a tense silence. Yixing watches his shoulders shift under his shirt while he bends over the stove. He’s just a little bit too tall, has to duck his head slightly to fit under the hood. 

Yixing swallows, rolling his tongue in his mouth and working up his courage. “Thank you for…” He doesn’t know how to continue. Doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth when he says he’s thankful. 

“You don’t have to talk about it.” Sehun doesn’t look away from the eggs in the pan. “It’s a hard subject.” 

“Yes…” Working his jaw, trying to find the right words, Yixing takes a sip of his coffee, grimacing because he hasn’t realized until now that it’s straight black. “But it’s okay. I can talk about it if you want to.” 

Sehun sighs, plating the eggs and sliding the dish in front of Yixing. “I suppose I should ask the most obvious question of them all, then: Why?” 

Yixing takes a bite of his eggs. When was the last time he talked to someone outside of his head? Much more, when was the last time he actually told someone what’s really going on with him? He can’t remember. Is it a good thing to talk to Sehun? He’s a stranger. But then, psychiatrists are strangers too, and Yixing used to tell them everything. “I was suicidal. Maybe I still am, I haven’t decided.” 

_ He’s going to lock you away. _

“Haven’t decided?” 

“Yeah.” Yixing shakes his head. “I haven’t really thought about what being suicidal actually means. If I don’t have a way to kill myself right now, am I still suicidal? Or am I only suicidal when I have a knife to my throat?” 

Trying to look inconspicuous, Sehun shuffles to stand in front of the knife block on the countertop behind him. Yixing laughs, a dry, forced sound. “I won’t kill myself in your apartment, if that’s what you’re worried on.” 

“Then you should stay here for a while.” Sehun easily replies. “I don’t mind. I consider it to be my job, now that I’ve gone as far as feeding and clothing you.” 

Yixing looks down at himself, realizing for the second time that he’s not in his own clothes. “I’ll need to get some of my things, at least.” 

Sehun agrees, thankfully. He ends up escorting Yixing to his own apartment, not really trusting him enough to come back. Sehun treats him like he would treat the stray cat that comes through the window- gently, with just enough insistence that he’s the one that will help him, take care of him, feed him, all of it. However, he doesn’t let Yixing leave, like how the stray cat would meander the neighborhood during the day. 

Yixing packs just a few things into his backpack, grabbing the few necessities he might need. Clothes, toiletries… He leaves his phone where it’s sat for the past month, plugged in under his bed. It’s too easy to track him through it. It’s like a free hint to the Organization every time he uses it. 

When he’s collecting his toothbrush and face wash, he glances at the mirror cabinet in his bathroom, seeing the orange pill bottles waiting behind the glass for him without even looking. He catches the glare of a creature in the mirror, hunched behind him in the bathroom corner, and decides to leave the pills behind. He’s gone this long without them. Besides- they’re not really medicine. They’re mind-control drugs, put in his bottles to try and take over Yixing’s brain. That’s what They want, and he won’t give it to them so easily. Not now that he’s enlightened. 

He only grabs one bottle, and it’s not of the ones prescribed to him. 

Sehun looks disgusted by the ramshackle state of Yixing’s apartment, and he barely has the presence of mind to at least try to hide it. Yixing takes a deep breath and agrees with him. The place is ugly. Sehun’s right. Yixing’s been unemployed for two months after his Death and the creatures begun to act up so much, spent all his time in the shitty hole in the wall with only an alley entrance. It shows, in the stained clothes draped over the furniture, the piles of dishes in the sink, the pungency of the air, reeking of old smoke and something akin to sadness. Sehun’s apartment is much better, and Yixing supposes he can treat this like a vacation. 

_ It’s not like that, Yixing. He’s going to harm you.  _

Yixing sighs in the passenger seat of the car, on the way back to Sehun’s, and the man just pats his knee. “Thanks for staying alive.” He says. Yixing doesn’t know why he cares so much. 

 

—-

 

Yixing and Sehun fall into an easy routine. Sehun, as it turns out, is actually Sehun  _ Oh _ , the rather famous author. He works from home most of the time, when he doesn’t have to meet with his demonic editors or the publishing company itself. Yixing, too, is in the apartment more often than not, but he thinks that’s because Sehun insists on keeping an eye on him. 

It ends up getting unexpectedly domestic- Yixing cooks and cleans the apartment when he gets restless, reads and bothers Sehun the rest of the time. Sehun’s face gets younger when he laughs at Yixing. He carries some sort of weight on his shoulders, more than just Yixing’s presence in his apartment. It makes him look older, years of pulling down on the corners of his lips etching his face into a blank mask. 

Yixing likes when Sehun smiles. He finds himself smiling, too. Maybe he and Sehun both need practice in the subjects of happiness and smiling. Something thunders in his chest in these moments, a slight quickening of his heartbeat that has his head reeling. Yixing’s not stupid- it’s the beginnings of something. A fluttering feeling in his chest that he’s never felt before. It’s stupid, and illogical. Maybe not something big, but something nonetheless. Sehun seems to feel it too, if his special smiles and gentle touches are anything to go by. 

It’s when Yixing discovers an old guitar that Sehun changes demeanors. It’s the first time Yixing’s seen him sad, really, truly sad, a sort of sad that collapses his shoulders in on themselves and bows his head like an old man. 

_ Now you’ve done it. _ Death tells him then.  _ You’ve angered him, angered Them, you’re going to be locked away.  _

Yixing shakes his head, placing a shaky hand on Sehun’s shoulder. The younger is crying, stoically straight-faced while a thin line of tears run down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Is all he can think to say in the moment. 

Sehun takes a shuddering breath, forcing a strained, self-deprecating laugh through his teeth. “No. I’m glad you found it. I should really get rid of it, or find a better place at least.” 

Yixing looks to the guitar next to the two of them. Its wood is faded, strings probably out of tune. It has the look of something well-loved, something old and worn but taken good care of. It’s more than just some instrument. Where did Sehun find such a thing? Where did he form such an attachment to it? Sehun’s sworn up and down that he’s not musical in the slightest, every time Yixing’s tried to get him to sing along to the radio, or heard him mumbling in the shower.  

“Can you… Play it?” Sehun asks, surprising Yixing. 

Dumbly, he nods. “Would you like me to?” It’s hesitant, a shaky step out onto the surface of a frozen lake. 

“Yes.” Sehun bites his lip, pearl teeth against bruised flesh. “It would be a shame to not use the thing.” 

Yixing meets his eyes, a searching stare. Is this really the right thing to do right now? Interrupt whatever bond Sehun has with the guitar to play it himself? Sehun is more shattered than Yixing’s ever seen him, more emotionally vulnerable than he thought he would ever be. 

Cautiously, like a man in front of an unpredictable animal, Yixing picks up the guitar, gently adjusts the strings by ear. He goes slower than he needs to, gives Sehun an extra moment to back out. He takes one last look into Sehun’s eyes, and strums a chord, muscle memory kicking in as he plays the first song that comes to mind. 

It’s a soft one, a gentle progression of chords and quietly sung lyrics, some indie thing about new love tainted by past trauma. The irony is not lost on Yixing, even if it wasn’t a conscious choice to sing such a song. It’s an entirely mediocre endeavor- Yixing’s mumbling more than he is singing, and his only audience is crying rather than enjoying the music. The song comes to an end, and Yixing’s fingers still over the strings. 

Yixing hasn’t had an audience in years, probably, and now, he’s made his first audience cry. It can’t entirely be his fault- there’s obviously more to this guitar than strings and wood, but it still makes discomfort pinch in the pit of his stomach. He’s made Sehun cry. Tears are running down his cheeks, his lips are bit ragged, all because Yixing picked up this old instrument. 

 

Yixing’s made people cry before. He’s looked on as his own parents wept above him, when he was weak and young and in a hospital bed for the first time of many. He remembers it, taken back. He was just a kid, maybe fourteen, when he first tried to take his life. It was out of stress, then. He just was beginning to find out the truth, the wicked, horrible truth that was hidden from him, hidden from the world, for so long. It terrified him. The Organization was watching him- They sent out agents in black coats and blank faces to watch him at all hours, lurking just outside his darkened bedroom windows, just to the left of his line of vision. 

Yixing can’t remember his method, that time. He can’t remember most of the month leading up to it, too. He was too naïve to realize that They had control over the meds. That They had control over everything. How stupid he’d been, mindlessly swallowing down chalky tablets, unknowing, uncaring, of what could possibly be in them. 

His family wept for him that time. His mother pleaded with God, his father pleaded with Yixing. What could they do? God, what could they do? Why make their son suffer like this? And of course, to Yixing: Why would you try to take yourself away? Why won’t you tell us anything? Why did you do it? 

They wept the second, and the third, and the fourth, but by the fifth time Yixing was in the hospital psychiatric ward, a young man then, pale and thin and sinking into the bleached white sheets, they couldn’t find it in them anymore. He’d broken their hearts too often. He knows now that they never deserved it. They never deserved a son like him. It’s the price of knowing the dirtiest secrets the world has to offer. Their emotions were collateral damage. 

He’d cut off ties with them when he got out of the hospital that time. Took up his old job in a warehouse, slept in his car until he could afford his shithole apartment. There he’d spend hours hiding in the corners, buying food and then throwing it away because Death told him it was poisoned. Locking his windows to keep out the creatures that phased through them anyways. 

_ The price of knowing, _ Death repeated to him. Yixing believed it. 

 

Sehun coughs, rooting out the sadness stuck between his ribs, and Yixing is brought to the present. “Thank you.” He says. 

Yixing nods, and puts the guitar down, slides an arm through Sehun’s and leans against his shoulder. 

“You should play it more.” Sehun looks down at the top of Yixing’s head, shifts so that Yixing falls against his chest, so he can run a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to get so emotional. It would be good, I think, if you played it. You can take care of it.” 

Yixing makes an ambivalent noise in his throat, dodging the idea. “You should go to bed. You have to meet with your editor tomorrow.” 

“Minseok, right.” Sehun sighs, disentangles himself from Yixing. “Thanks. Um, goodnight.” He nods curtly, trying to keep his face neutral, and disappears into the bedroom. 

_ He regrets you. He’ll call Them in the morning.  _ Death claws its way into Yixing’s ears.  _ You’d better do it tonight. You have the means.  _

Yixing falls back into his guest bed and covers his face with his borrowed pillow. It smells like his own scalp oil. He should shower, but it’s so hard to force himself, so hard to see his emaciated body, so hard just to be functioning, even now that he has Sehun. 

 

—-

 

Yixing wakes up one night, alone in Sehun’s guest room. He’s used to this, waking up. More like, not sleeping at all. 

Insomnia plagued him when he first found out about the world, but it had only ever declined. Never gone away. When he was awake those times, sometimes for days on end, he saw. The creatures grew strongest in his sleepless nights, coming close enough to brush their shadows against his skin, stare into his eyes, just inches separating Yixing’s own pupils from glaring yellow beads. 

Nightmares. Hallucinations, caused by lack of sleep. That’s what the articles online had said, when Yixing made the mistake of looking up his ailments. See, the creatures are not  _ caused _ by lack of sleep. They exist without any cause, purpose, or reason. Maybe, actually, they have a purpose. Maybe they are another one of the fingers the Organization dips into Yixing’s life, another fiend sent to torment him. 

Whatever they are, they do their job. Yixing thinks only Hell could be worse than his existence on Earth, plagued by these things, these monsters that are there and not there at the same time. They come when Yixing is weak, prey on him when his morale is low. They’re always there, actually, yes, but they know they can intrude when Yixing is weak. They have dark obsidian teeth that wink in the slivers of streetlight. They smile with these teeth, stone-still, an agent’s hand perched on one their tangled head. They collude. When the agents cannot watch, the creatures take over. They have free reign of Yixing’s boundaries. They come into his old apartment, they tear up the walls and nip at his heels. He is never alone. They keep Yixing awake, and by consequence, only grow stronger. 

This time, Yixing wakes up, rather than doesn’t sleep, and this time, it is because of a sound. 

_ They’re here. _ Death says into Yixing’s ears. Its voice is low, urgent. Like somehow, They will hear it. Yixing can only wait, for another sound, for Death to speak again; anything. 

_ They’re HERE. _ Death says again, with more force. Yixing feels his blood run cold as something drags across the floorboards distantly, a tired, limping kind of shuffle that doesn’t match with Sehun’s gait, that Yixing knows so well. They really  _ are _ here. 

As silently as he can, Yixing slips from his bed. His bare feet press into the floorboards without a sound. He walks in a similar way, a creeping kind of hunch, pressing his heel down and slowly lowering the ball of his foot, negating the slap of flesh that would normally sound out from soft feet on wood. 

Luckily, or maybe dangerously, Yixing has left his bedroom door open, just a crack. Luckily, he decides when he reaches it. He stares out from this fissure, barely able to see into the hallway. Nothing is out of place, at least, not there. He pulls the door open, just wide enough to slide through sideways, and enters the hallway. It’s short, and he can see into the kitchen, lit up by the moonlight through its large windows. Another sound echoes out of the kitchen. A thud, and then something rolling across the floor, several soft bumps. The same limping footsteps cross the tile floor of the kitchen onto the wooden boards of the living room, and papers begin to shift about. 

Yixing peeks his head around the corner, and watches. It’s an agent. Death is correct, Yixing can only observe. An agent is in Sehun’s apartment, They have found Yixing. They’ve never done this. Never sent something in other than the creatures, which Yixing could deal with himself. 

This… thing… It’s big. It’s man shaped, but Yixing knows it’s not a man. He’s never gotten close, but he’s seen the shadows of one of Their faces before, the dull black skin. He’s seen one of Them smile at him before, stark white teeth glowing dangerously between dried lips, a something so wrong and threatening he’d not been able to look away. Now, one of Them is here. It’s rooting through Sehun’s manuscripts, one of his older prospects, a half-finished idea. The pages are laid out on the coffee table, where Yixing had been poring over them earlier in the day. 

What is it looking for? 

Yixing glances into the kitchen, looking for any other disturbances. The fruit bowl is overturned on the ground, its contents spilled over the kitchen floor. His eyes track over the scene, and freeze when he catches the glint of a knife handle. The metal grip of the carving knife shines in the moonlight. Yixing swallows hard, and knows what he has to do. To protect himself. Protect Sehun. 

Slowly, he inches towards the knife block. The agent is still in the living room, but Yixing will easily be in its sight if it chooses to turn away from the coffee table. His feet move soundlessly across the floor, but infinitely slow. He cannot be heard, but he must get this knife. 

His toe brushes something, and Yixing seizes up. A pear, spilled from the fruit bowl, bounces across the floor. It makes no sound, but too much sound at the same time. The agent turns around, dropping the manuscript. 

It’s eyes meet Yixing’s, and he  _ runs.  _ Throwing himself at the countertop, he tears the carving knife free from the block and scarcely has the time to grip it in his hands before the agent is upon him. It charges him, clawed fingers outstretched. Yixing ducks, and blindly stabs with the knife. 

With a soft, squelching sound, the knife parts the flesh of the agent’s stomach, cutting through the black of its body. Something freezing cold pours over Yixing’s fingers, pumping out of the wound. It’s an oily black substance, numbingly cold- it’s blood. It’s the agent’s own parody of blood, something so opposite to human. The agent stills, for a moment, and Yixing feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips. Did he do it? 

He pulls the knife out, ready to stab the agent again for good measure, when it convulses, claps its hands to the sides of Yixing’s head, boxing his ears. He can feel the pressure of the inhumanly long fingers wrapping around his skull, the thud of his heartbeat in his own ears. The agent lowers its head, and drags its eyes to meet Yixing’s. They’re a deep, sickening yellow, pupil-less and ringed by black sclera. Yixing uses all his strength to drive the life into it again, feels the slide of it’s icy blood pour down the blade, onto his shaking hands. 

The agent screams, an empty, toe-curling sound. All Yixing sees is the open maw of its mouth, it’s too-white, too-long teeth, and then he sees nothing. 

 

—-

 

Yixing wakes up again, at the sound of Sehun’s morning alarm. His face is pressed against the tile floor of the kitchen, numb and cold on one side and sticky from sweat on the other. The knife is still gripped in his hands, and he’s lucky he didn’t fall on it when he passed out. The agent is gone. Yixing’s curled body on the floor and the spilled fruit is the only testament of the event being real. Not even the knife, which had dripped with black blood, is dirty. 

_ Sehun can’t know.  _ Death commands, before Yixing properly gets his bearings. He probably has about five minutes, the length of Sehun’s snooze button, to clean up the fruit, put the knife away, and slink back to his bedroom, pretend to be asleep. Yixing sleeps in later than Sehun, normally. 

Yixing snaps into focus, and quickly stands, bracing himself when his head rushes, and the consequences of passing out on the floor have his joints lighting up like electric shocks. He slides the knife carefully back into the wooden knife block, still computing how the blood could have been washed off. The Organization has their ways, he supposes. It’s unnerving, the lack of physical evidence. Yixing feels a metallic tang in the back of his throat, almost like he’s going to throw up. 

The fruit. It’s bruised now, and one of the bananas has split open, but Yixing drops them back into the bowl anyways. He doesn’t remember if the apples or the pears had been on top, or where exactly the pomegranate even came from, but he supposes Sehun won’t notice. He’s just placing the bowl back on the countertop when Sehun’s bedroom door opens, early. 

Death yells something in Yixing’s ear, but he can’t discern it. He quickly rips open the rest of the split banana and shoves some into his mouth just as Sehun shuffles into the kitchen. He rubs one eye, sleepily, and wipes at it with the hem of his shirt. 

“I thought I heard you moving around in here.” He says, He eyes Yixing, looking him up and down and focusing hard on his face. “Are you okay?” Sehun gestures to his own cheek, drawing a line from his temple to the corner of his lips. “You have an… indentation. Did you-“ 

“I must have slept hard.” Yixing excuses himself. “I just woke up, myself.” 

Sehun nods, but the wheels in his head are still turning. He’s slow, in the morning, and doesn’t really wake up until he’s had breakfast and some coffee. Yixing hopes he’s not going to push further. 

“I thought you didn’t like banana?” Sehun finally asks. Yixing grimaces.

“I decided to try it.” He says around his mouthful. He can’t bring himself to swallow it. “Eat healthy.”

“That’s… good.” Sehun’s eyes seem hesitant, curious. Perturbed. Breaking the eye contact, he bends down to touch his toes, sighing when his back cracks. “I’m going to shower first, if that’s okay.” 

Yixing waves a hand towards the hallway, the bathroom door. “Go ahead.” 

When Sehun turns and leaves, Yixing spits the banana out into the sink. He feels dirty, lying to Sehun. 

_ It’s not really a lie.  _ Death reassures him.  _ Sehun is with Them. You can’t let him know you hurt one of Them. He’ll hurt you, for sure.  _

Yixing sighs, and runs the garbage disposal. It spits some banana back up, as if trying to ruin Yixing’s lie. He just turns on the water and rinses it down the rest of the way.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look out. the trigger warnings before mentioned really matter here. there is a nonlethal suicide attempt in this chapter. I PROMISE THINGS WILL SHAPE UP SOON SO SOON

Yixing plays the guitar, every so often. Sehun has to ask him to, at first, which makes Yixing more than reluctantly pick up the instrument. He doesn’t ever cry like he did the first time, instead adopts a carefully placed expression of neutrality, or even fondness, when Yixing plays a song that he likes. Yixing has a library in his head full of songs he’d like to sing for Sehun, all of them about gentle healing and the tender newness of a relationship. His voice breaks sometimes, when he catches Sehun watching him with something sweet in his glance. 

Nothing can be too perfect though, never for Yixing. Death follows him around Sehun’s apartment, closer than ever. It grips his shoulders with obsidian claws, whispers terrible things into his ears. It talks about Them, mostly. The people, the Organization that watches Yixing, watches the whole world. They commit the most inhuman of crimes- They take over people’s minds, read their thoughts, control them. People are helpless to the Organization because they have no clue of its existence. Yixing’s only left alive with his level of knowledge for this reason- no one will believe him 

The creatures are afraid, now. Now that Yixing’s proven he’s dangerous. They don’t dare step foot into Sehun’s apartment. They only ever wait outside the windows, peer in with their yellowed eyes, sunken into shadowy faces. Even the gods of them, the huge, winged things that could tear Yixing to shreds, respect the boundaries of Sehun’s home. Because of this, Yixing scarcely leaves, even when he gets the eventual o.k. from Sehun. 

The creatures never had a problem infiltrating Yixing’s apartment. He thought he was hidden so well, too, in some back half of a laundromat, only accessible through a hole in the wall of an alley. He paid in cash, every month, and never let the landlord get much of a look at his face. He probably looked like a criminal, but even this level of caution couldn’t keep the creatures or the Organization off his back. 

They moved things around in Yixing’s apartment just to mess with him. One morning, his toothbrush would be on the left side of the sink. That night, the right. Little things like that. Enough to get the message to Yixing that he isn’t safe from their reach, not at home, not anywhere. 

His apartment. Right. 

“I think I’ve been evicted.” Yixing tells Sehun one morning, about five weeks since he’d moved in, when he thinks too much on the hole he came from. Sehun quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t look away from his computer screen. He’s listening. 

“I haven’t paid my rent this month.” Yixing explains. “I pay in cash, so there’s no way for the landlord to charge me for anything.”

“Can’t you call him? You have a cell phone, right?” Sehun points to his own, as if to give a visual example. 

Yixing doesn’t know how to tell him that his phone is tapped, that the Organization is in it, tracking him, so he just says, “No, I don’t.” 

Sehun pauses in his typing to look at Yixing, scrutinizing him. “You really don’t, do you? I guess I’ve never seen you on one. How’s it feel to be unplugged?” 

“It’s good for me.” Yixing finds himself being honest. “I used to freak myself out about things.” 

_ You still do. But they’re  _ just _ reasons. Don’t tell Sehun. He will pretend not to know what’s going on. He’s one of Them, you know.  _

“We can go by and check it out after lunch.” Sehun decides. “You want to pay the landlord?”

Yixing finds himself worrying his lip between his teeth. “I don’t have the money. I’m not about to ask you for some, either.” 

Sehun nods. “You don’t have a job, right. You can stay here until you get one- if- if you want.” His cheeks are the slightest bit pink. It’s cute. Sehun is cute, Yixing’s been noticing lately. 

“Thank you.” 

True enough, Yixing’s things are out in the alley, a pink slip on the door telling him his rent is two months overdue. Most of it is unsalvageable, probably having been hit by the rain that came through two nights ago. Yixing picks up a few items, though, mostly more clothes, and a few books that aren’t too ruined. Sehun sorts through the things with him, and to his credit, only gags a few times. He gets the worst of it, too- he’s the one who discovers the remnants of what was in the refrigerator, hidden underneath some upturned thrift-store furniture. 

He ends up kicking a box over, and Yixing’s dreaded pill bottles fall out of it. Caught like a deer in the headlights, Yixing can only watch as Sehun stoops to pick one up. “Don’t!” He cries, wading through the trash to reach Sehun. He snatches the pill bottle away, hides it behind his back and kicks the other few towards the gutter. “Those aren’t mine.” 

Sehun rolls his eyes. “They have your name on them. I saw at least that.” He takes a more serious tone, picking up some of the bottles and putting them in one of the ‘keep’ boxes. Yixing can taste them on his tongue, the flakiness of the tablet leaving bitterness in the back of his mouth. “You haven’t been taking them?” 

Yixing doesn’t have an answer at first. 

_ He’s going to force them down your throat. He’s no good, like the hospital. Just leave.  _

“I don’t need them anymore.” He finally says. He ignores Death- he trusts Sehun, in some back corner of his mind. He trusts someone, for once in his life. Sehun… he wouldn’t harm Yixing. In Yixing’s confusing world, this is one fact that rings undoubtedly true. Sehun is not an enemy. Yixing might even consider him a friend? How long has it been since he’s had a friend? His last psychiatrist had called him a friend, but he was being paid by the government to fill his time with Yixing’s ramblings. Sehun is a  _ real _ friend. The kind who gives freely and takes what Yixing offers. The kind who really cares, wants to see Yixing succeed, wants to give him the things he needs to get stronger. Sehun is  _ good. _

“That’s a lie.” Sehun says, shaking his head. He looks disappointed, like Yixing’s done something so wrong that he can’t help but just feel sorry. No anger, just pity. It makes Yixing feel disgusting. 

Sehun takes the last bottle from Yixing’s hand, the Seroquel, The telling one. He looks it over, and tosses it into the box, with the rest of them. “I’ve seen what’s going on with you. To keep it short: I know. But you have meds you can take? Why are you suffering if you can do that?” 

_ He won’t listen. Lie to him. Tell him they’re broken.  _

“I’m fine.” Yixing tries to smile, gently, like Sehun is used to seeing him. He puts a hand on Sehun’s forearm, comforting. “They don’t work, anyways.” 

“The prescriptions are new. You haven’t opened them. How do you know?” The slight twang of stress is creeping into Sehun’s voice, just a tiny bit of desperation. He’s trying to understand. The gears in his brain are turning, working overtime, just to keep up with Yixing, match his thought processes. 

“I can’t take them.” Yixing finds himself snapping. 

Sehun doesn’t rise to his anger, instead, looks at Yixing with something indecipherable in his eyes. It’s a mix of pity, definitely, sadness, maybe, and an indistinct determination, not a fire but maybe a flame. “You’ll take them while you stay with me.” Sehun says, with finality. “If you have something that’s going to help you, you’re going to accept that help.” 

Yixing crosses his arms. He can’t even think, the alarms in his head are going off so loudly. A thousand voices, not just Death’s, rush in and out of his hearing, panicking over the pills and Sehun and Them and poisons and stalkers. Yixing can’t feel his fingers, can’t see straight, can’t imagine moving from his spot. Sehun says something, but his words are lost in Yixing’s own inner noise. 

_ He’s just like Them he’s evil- Don’t take the pills Yixi- Hide them- You have to run- There’s no way out now- Not unless- No- The Organization- Yes- They’re coming- They know- Sehun is one of Them-  _

Yixing balls his fists in his hair, almost ripping it out, and squats among the mess in the alley. Too much is happening. Too much too quickly- he can’t keep up, Sehun is talking- what is he saying? Yixing has to try to listen- Sehun is worried- what is he doing? 

Yixing barely registers the arm being hooked around his shoulders, the gentle way he is guided out of the alley and back into the passenger seat of Sehun’s car. The door slams, and Yixing is left alone, but not for long. Sehun loads a few boxes into the backseat, and re-enters. 

He places his hand on Yixing’s thigh, and they drive off. Yixing watches his apartment disappear for the last time, and he tries to shut out something that’s already inside of him. 

 

— 

 

Yixing and Sehun decide on ice cream. It’s an entirely spontaneous endeavor, spurred in the moment by a combination of Sehun craving something sweet, and getting stuck in lunch hour traffic right across the street from a more famous ice cream shop. It’s an old Italian gelato place, actually. Yixing’s never had gelato before, and that’s another reason Sehun brings up in his impenetrable case as to why the two should park the car go get it. 

Yixing’s calmed down enough from his moment back at the apartment. Death has been silent for a while and the creatures stay out of Yixing’s sight. They’re giving him a break, and he’ll thankfully take it. He’s able to fully focus his attention on Sehun, and it’s something… different. Sehun is a  _ really, genuinely  _ good person. He’s sweet and soft despite his intimidating appearance, and his quiet laugh when Yixing struggles to find a flavor to order makes his stomach flip. 

Sehun ends up ordering for the both of them, choosing dark chocolate for himself and cinnamon for Yixing. It tastes like pie, almost. The gelato shop has just enough room for two little tables, and the two of them take over the one in the corner, surrounded by windows. There’s frost on the outside, still clinging to the edges of the window frame, and Yixing smiles at it. It’s absurd, getting ice cream in March, while there’s ice on the ground outside. What’s even more absurd: Yixing’s been evicted from his apartment! And he’s staying with Sehun, who took him in like a stray cat when he was about to kill himself! For some reason, it’s absolutely hilarious to Yixing, and he finds himself laughing hard enough to almost lose the gelato off his cone. 

“Careful!” Sehun wraps his hand around Yixing’s wrist, steadying his hand. The roll of gelato settles back into the cone. Sehun’s and is warm and large around Yixing’s wrist. 

“Thank you.” Yixing says. He reaches his free hand to wipe at the corner of his eye, and smiles at Sehun, watching the other’s face morph into a soft grin and crinkled eyes. His hand stays on Yixing’s wrist. Yixing doesn’t mind, he thinks. 

“I’m working on a scene in my book that I just can’t figure out.” Sehun says after a brief silence. Yixing is surprised; Sehun is private about his writing, keeping what he’s working on hidden until it’s finished. It’s odd, because with the amount of people that follow Sehun’s works and read his books, he’s never going to have a book that’s private once it’s done and published. He has thousands, maybe millions of readers. 

Maybe it’s his perfectionism, Yixing thinks. Sehun likes everything in order, everything just right. He probably won’t share his work with Yixing because he’s afraid of judgment, afraid that it’s not his absolute best. Yixing’s proud that Sehun’s even breaching the subject of his recent book to him, proud that he’s the one Sehun’s chosen to talk to about it. 

“What’s the scene?” Yixing asks, trying to prompt Sehun. 

“It’s actually more of a concept, a subplot, than a scene. I’ve got this couple.” Sehun begins. “The book isn’t a romance, but there’s some involved. This couple- they’ve been through a lot together. They both carry scars, but they know how to help each other. Their names are Jongdae and Kyungsoo. The two of them have fought to be together, literally. This book is about the mafia, kind of. But either way, Jongdae and Kyungsoo both think they’re only friends with each other. They think that they’re brothers, maybe. But Kyungsoo, he wants to love Jongdae in a different way. He’s afraid, though, because the last man he loved, Jongin, was killed, because he couldn’t save him. So he’s afraid that Jongdae will be hurt as well.” 

Yixing nods.  _ He’s talking about you.  _ A voice, different than Death, whispers. Yixing sighs inwardly. Sehun could be, but he’s not. He’s just got a book to write, and may have been influenced by Yixing, who all the sudden, started to take up most of his life. Yixing would be vain to think that Sehun cares about him in that way. 

Sehun goes on, “I’m struggling with how Kyungsoo and Jongdae’s relationships develop. I’m not usually one to write romances, so I don’t really know what I’m doing. I feel like… If Kyungsoo were just to say, ‘I love you,’ to Jongdae, Jongdae wouldn’t think it was said in the way it was meant.” 

“So you need to have Kyungsoo show he’s in love, more than just say it?” Yixing asks. 

Sehun nods, removing his hand from Yixing’s wrist to gesticulate. Yixing feels his stomach clench at the loss of the touch, He hasn’t been touched affectionately in… Years, really. It’s something he didn’t know he misses. 

“The story is from Kyungsoo’s perspective. So it’s easy to show that he loves Jongdae through his internal monologue, but it’s not easy for Kyungsoo to show Jongdae that he loves him through his… Actions?” 

“Actions are important.” Yixing ends up replying. “You can tell a lot about a person by the care they put into their interactions.” Taking a chance, Yixing pauses, before saying, “Like, how I can tell you care about me. Through everything you’ve done for me.” 

Sehun’s cheeks pink. “Yeah.” He mumbles, taking a bite out of his gelato and wincing when the cold hits his teeth. “I do.” 

 

—-

Sehun is serious when he says that Yixing will have to take his pills, but Yixing is also serious when he says he can’t. To Yixing’s benefit, though, he’s been in these situations before, overcome them with much more diligent nurses than what Sehun what likes to play at. It’s easy enough to swallow the pills, and even easier still to quietly cough them back up into his water cup when Sehun finishes inspecting the insides of Yixing’s mouth. 

Yixing feels dirty doing it, and he really, truthfully, should. He’s lying to Sehun every time he coughs the tablets up. Lying when he says he feels better, lying when he says his ‘symptoms’ are lightening. He’s nothing but a dirty liar, and it makes him sick to his stomach sometimes. 

_ It’s the price of keeping your sanity. _ Death always reassures him. But is this truly sanity? Yixing doesn’t know anymore. He trusts Death, and he trusts Sehun, but they are saying drastically different things. Sehun tells him there’s nothing- that the Organization doesn’t exist, that he’s deluded, that the food isn’t poisoned and there are no agents following him. He tells Yixing that he’s schizophrenic. He sounds like the doctors in the hospital when he does. Cold, clinical. Talk to a patient for half an hour, shove them into a made-up box, throw some pills at them. Check, check, check, and move on to the next. 

Death tells him what it always has. It’s easy to fall into Death’s truths, to accept them wholly because they’re what Yixing’s heard his entire life. It’s all a trap. The Organization has him on their list, They’re sending agents out to hurt him in the night. He can’t trust the food, can’t trust the phone, can’t trust even Sehun. 

But… Yixing  _ does  _ trust Sehun. He’s grown close to him in the weeks he’s been living with him, seen good and bad sides of him. Sehun writes like a madman, churning out words into his pages and creating worlds that seem like dreams. He writes with his face mirroring the emotions of the scene- a frown when a character is angry, a tender smile when someone falls in love. He laughs when Yixing gets caught up in his thoughts and gently touches his shoulders when he’s thinking too hard. He cooks mediocre food and loves Thai takeout and forgets his razor when he showers. (He yells for Yixing in those times, who laughingly passes the razor through the shower curtain). 

Yixing’s not stupid. He knows a lot of things, and he knows a lot about Sehun. He’s strong and cold on the outside, but unexpectedly tender. He’s warmed up to Yixing, become the closest friend Yixing thinks he’s ever had. And, Yixing supposes, he could want Sehun to be more than a friend. He’s never been in a relationship before, never been able to trust someone enough to feel attracted to them. But Sehun? Yixing doesn’t think he would mind if they were something more. 

He can’t ignore the touches, the looks Sehun sends to him. The way his face goes pink when Yixing leans in too close and the special way he smiles when Yixing opens up to him. It’s requited, he knows. All he has to do is make a move. And he wants that. He really does, and yet- he’s so afraid. 

He trusts Sehun, he trusts Death… But he can’t trust both: they insist on opposite poles of the Earth, yank at each side of Yixing’s brain until his head is reeling, pounding. 

_ Cognitive dissonance _ . The doctor in the hospital had used that word when Yixing begged for nicotine patches, told him that as a former smoker, he used to face it. His brain is being pulled in two different directions, he holds two contrasting beliefs. No matter what he does, in order to achieve a state of comfort, he has to change his perception of the world to accommodate one belief, however true or false it might be. He can’t hold both without being in a state of distress. 

Instead of being comforted by Sehun’s care, or Death’s observations, Yixing is afraid. Afraid of what Death tells him, afraid that Sehun is lying, afraid of the world around him. And slowly, this fear solidifies into something worse. Yixing finds himself glancing at the first pill bottle he brought to Sehun’s house. The secret ones. Alprazolam. Death whispers about them sometimes. How easy it would be. They’d slide down his throat, he’d fall asleep, and it would be over. He would win against the agents, Organization, in a way. Get to himself before they get to him. 

They look tempting. Yixing can practically feel the bottle in his hands, the way the pills will slightly stick to the back of his throat no matter how much water he takes them with. It would be so easy. Sehun is just in the kitchen, writing, but Yixing could run a bath. Run a bath, take the pills, wait for them to knock him out and sink his head beneath the water. 

_ It’s time, Yixing.  _

Without thinking, Yixing finds himself obeying. Death is too strong. He can’t take Sehun’s side. Not when something so ingrained into his psyche is telling him the exact opposite of everything Sehun insists upon. Too strong, too strong… 

_ “I’m going to take a bath.”  _ Death uses Yixing’s voice. Yixing is too weak to use it himself. 

“You just showered, though?” Sehun asks, looking up from his writing. His face is so innocent. He has no idea. Would he care? Death says he’s just another cog in the machine of the Organization. He’s an agent wearing a man’s face. An agent Yixing has mistakenly begun to trust, begun to care for. 

_ No time for sentimentality. You know he’s one of Them. Don’t delude yourself.  _

_ “I just want a bath.”  _ Yixing’s- Death’s- voice turns sour at the end, tense. 

Sehun’s shoulders rise to his ears, a wrinkle appearing between his brows. “Fine, yeah, take a bath. They don’t charge for extra water, anyways.” 

He really doesn’t know. Yixing feels something coil in this pit of his stomach, a mass of worms squirming around in there. He’s deceiving Sehun. He’s going to make Sehun have to find his body. 

_ Don’t think about that. He doesn’t care. Just do what you need to do, Yixing.  _

He pockets the bottle and shuffles to the bathroom, pills barely rattling in their orange case. The tap is cold at first, but as it warms up, Yixing drags a hand through the water. He holds the pill bottle in the other, staring at the white tablets. They aren’t his, they aren’t safe, they  _ are _ perfect. 

Taking handfuls of pills dredges up emotions that Yixing never thought he would feel again. His first suicide attempt had been through pills. Though, that time, it was household acetaminophen. The desperation with which he’d drunk down handfuls at a time is vivid, pulling tears from his eyes when the feeling comes back. He had been so afraid. Knowing had been too much, the whisperings of Death, the creatures, the Organization- they’d all just been too much. That time, Yixing was afraid. He was dying because he was too scared to keep living. 

Now, Yixing is dying because he’s afraid, too, but for different reasons. He’s afraid of trust, afraid of making the choice between the Truth and Sehun. His emotions are a mess. Yixing knows exactly what he feels for Sehun, and that is exactly why he has to die. He cannot love, not in this world. Not when Sehun could be one of Them. Not when Sehun, if he isn’t, could be tortured by Them, just to get to Yixing. He can’t do that to Sehun. Can’t project his emotions onto someone so young, with so much life ahead of him. Yixing is a miserable person, a black hole, and Sehun will not be another bright light sucked into it and destroyed. 

The pills stick to the walls of Yixing’s throat, and churn in his stomach. He can already feel the effects: first, the sickening calm of the high. Soon, he’ll not be able to stand, and later, keep his eyes open. He will fall into a pit of unconsciousness, slip underwater, and never wake up. 

Yixing hisses when he enters the bath at the hot water, and slowly settles in. He’s naked, and supposes that Sehun will find one ugly body when he inevitably goes looking for Yixing. A curled, pale, sickly thing, pruned and bloated from the bathwater, latticed by scars and burns. Yixing is disgusted by himself. Sehun will be disgusted, too. 

Yixing’s eyelids begin to droop, his head drifting in and out of awareness. He notices that the music Sehun is playing skips forward in intervals- he’s losing time. This is it. This is the end. The end of Yixing, the end of his pain and fear and threat. This is the end of the man who Knows, the end of the man the Organization has followed for so long. This is the end of the man that fell in love, the man that wanted to have everything but knew he could have nothing. 

Yixing falls asleep, and his head remains above water, lolling against the side of the tub. The breath that exits his nose in shallow gasps creates ripples on the surface. 

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen... i know this story seems like a downer right now... but there's always a thunderstorm before the rainbow and it's going to be so good so soon ok i love you all please tell me what you think please!!!! i love to hear from you and it really motivates me to write more!!!


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> okay! so there's discussion around a minor character death in here. it's brief, but vaguely mentioned that a Very minor character died in the past of suicide. keep yourselves comfortable and don't feel obligated to read if you don't want to!

“You have to send him in. I’m actually legally obligated to call the police, Sehun.” A sharp, clinical voice pierces into Yixing’s world of grey fog and leaden limbs. He’s conscious, but barely, he realizes. This is not Purgatory, either. This is the solid press of a bed against his back, the dull ache of his throat from a breathing tube that must have been there. This is life. Yixing is alive. He can’t say he isn’t disappointed. How many times has he died just to live again? How many times is he going to brush the edge but not cross over? 

His mind is empty. Nothing clamors for his attention but the quiet tick of a traditional clock somewhere, and the low voice of whomever is talking. The voice keeps going, an ugly drone, and Yixing feels his body seize up for a moment, but carefully relaxes himself. He needs to listen. Death would have told him that, but it’s oddly absent. 

“Please-“ It’s Sehun. “Baekhyun- listen- he can’t go back there- they have him on the list for ECT and you and I both know that’s how you make a zombie.” 

“I did you a favor already by not taking him to the formal ER. I could have been hit with malpractice if he died.” Baekhyun, whoever he is, sounds like an asshole. 

“But you saved his life.” Sehun sounds strained. 

“It’s going to be for nothing if he goes untreated. He took a whole fucking bottle of Alprazolam. A whole bottle! And you know what I already showed you- the self harm- he’s a man with a death wish and you’re just going to get hurt. You already fucked up once with Chanyeol; don’t do it again.” 

A sharp inhale of breath. When Sehun speaks, something red-hot, angry, sizzles in his tone. “Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you even say his name.” 

“Who, Chanyeol? Chanyeol, Chanyeol, Chanyeol! You didn’t make him get help and he  _ died _ . He was my best friend, too. You can’t just pretend- Saving Yixing won’t absolve you from your past. It’s too late for Chan-“ 

_ “Shut your mouth!”  _ Sehun yells. There’s a sudden sound, the give of flesh under a hard hand. Yixing can’t help it. His eyes fly open, and he gasps. He’s never heard Sehun yell before, heard him hit someone. Yixing’s scarcely ever even seen him angry, minus their first meeting. It triggers something within him, a primal fear. It courses under his skin, makes his vision like a tunnel when he scans the room. 

He’s in a small bed, a standard vinyl one like what would be found in a doctor’s office. This bed is in a cramped room, with several run-down hospital machines and an IV drip connected to Yixing’s inner elbow. Sehun- Yixing can recognize his tall stature- is standing just outside the room, talking to a shorter man in pale nurses scrubs, stained with black charcoal. He looks tired, the weight of the world on his shoulders. They both snap their heads to the sound Yixing makes, the doctor with a shocked hand on his reddening cheek, and he feels like a deer caught in the headlights. They must mirror his sentiment; they’re wide-eyed and slack-jawed. 

Shaking his head, Sehun comes back to himself. He stalks over to Yixing. Not knowing what to expect, Yixing offers a strained smile, which is wiped off his face when Sehun punches him, hard, in the shoulder. “Fuck you.” He seethes. His eyes are red-rimmed, dangerous in their despair. “Fuck you for doing this to me. You  _ promised. _ ” 

“It told me-“ Yixing frantically tries to explain himself, dry tongue catching on the words. A tear leaks out of his eye, slides down his face. “I was being watched, Sehun. The food was poison. The pills were poison. I couldn’t go on- I know too much-“ 

“You weren’t taking them.” Sehun throws his hands up. “The one thing I asked, the one thing that could  _ help  _ you! And you wouldn’t fucking do it! I should have just called the police when I found you!” 

Cold water pours over Yixing. “You won’t- you can’t send me- Sehun, please-“ He grabs the hem of Sehun’s rumpled shirt, clutches it in his hands. Sehun won’t meet his eyes. He looks around the room, anywhere but at Yixing. 

Jerking a hand through his hair, he concedes. “I won’t. You’re right, ECT is dangerous.” 

“I get to go home with you?” Unfiltered hope creeps into Yixing’s voice. Sehun still cares. He still will listen. Sehun is mad, yes, but he won’t end their relationship because of Yixing’s suicide attempt. He’s really trying- 

“There’s a condition.” Baekhyun’s voice cuts in. Yixing feels something decidedly horrible settle inside of him; Baekhyun is not to be trusted. “I managed to talk my psychiatrist friend into some things. First: I gave you a shot. Paliperidone palmitate. Invega. You know what that is?”  

Yixing stares. “You didn’t-“ 

“So you do. You’re going to come back in four days to get your next dose, and then you’re going to come back every month. In addition, you’re going to see Joonmyeon. He’s the psychiatrist. You are going to report everything you feel to this man. You are schizophrenic, Yixing. You are not some enlightened deity, or whatever fucked up hallucinations, delusions, all of it- whatever you’re listening to. I can’t believe you’ve kept yourself untreated for this long.” 

“You injected me?” Yixing stares at the IV, rips it out of his arm before anyone can stop him. It hurts, and blood quickly wells up in the crook of his arm, but he slaps a hand over it and ignores it.  _ “You injected me?!”  _ He makes to get out of the bed, but he can scarcely swing his legs off the side before Sehun’s shoving him back down by the shoulders. 

“You’re sick, Yixing.” Sehun says. His voice is strained. “You’re sick and you need help and you wouldn’t accept mine; I’m _ trying _ . We’re doing everything we can to keep you out of the hospital.” 

Where is Death? Yixing needs to hear it. He needs the comfort of his tormentor, to fall into the well that he’s spent his life in. It’s missing, no matter where Yixing searches inside of himself. He’s so lost, he’s never been without it. Could this be the effect of the injection? Is Death gone? Is something inside Yixing’s brain already being changed? The world is spinning. Yixing is a frail, curled body, floating in blackness. He needs his lifeline. He needs his ground to reality. 

“Where is it?” He begs. “You’ve gotten rid of it.” 

“Gotten rid of what?” Sehun asks. He looks concerned. 

_ He won’t understand. Don’t tell him about us.  _ Death would say, but it doesn’t. Yixing is alone now.

“Death. I talk to Death, and it’s gone. The injection-“ Yixing drops his head into his hands, groaning. “How could you do this to me?”  

“It’s a hallucination, Yixing. Whatever you hear- used to hear- isn’t real.” Baekhyun butts his ugly head in. Yixing is starting to resent this man, and everything he’s done. He came into Yixing’s life and gave him no choice- no choice in living, no choice in keeping his head. Now he has no choice in seeing a psych, no choice in taking injections. It’s pathetic, the limited freedoms Yixing has yet again been reduced to.  

Sehun is silent. His eyebrows are drawn together in a frown, and he paces the room anxiously. Yixing realizes just how lost the man looks. He’s so young, barely having earned his degree in creative writing. His skin is sallow and eyes bruised, from lack of sleep, crying… His entire appearance is disheveled, untucked shirt wrinkled and stained black from the charcoal Yixing knows Baekhyun probably pumped his stomach with, hair sticking up and oily from running his hands through it in that nervous habit of his. He seems so accustomed to sadness, settled into it like an old, whining bed. 

Yixing wishes he could protect Sehun from this. Everything, The world. Himself. Sehun doesn’t deserve the wrinkles on his young face, doesn’t deserve to be caught up on someone like Yixing. He deserves someone who will take care of him, someone who he can trust to wake up in the morning and someone who knows even the simple things like what is and isn’t the truth about the world around them. Yixing is not this person, and doesn’t think he will ever be. He’s too caught up in himself; caught up in  _ whatever _ plagues him, if he chooses to believe the doctor. 

Yixing doesn’t deserve Sehun, but he finds himself holding on to him tighter than ever. He needs Sehun. Needs to see his face in the morning, needs to eat his mediocre cooking, play his ancient guitar, gently knead his shoulders when he tenses them up writing too long. Sehun has become a lifeline to Yixing, and it’s selfish, he knows, to leech off someone how much he is leeching off Sehun. Sehun would be better off without him. Somehow, it’s harder to come to this conclusion on his own, hurts more to know it within himself without Death telling him. 

Sehun gently pushes Yixing’s legs to the side of the bed, and sits down on the outer edge, propping his elbows on his thighs and leaning his chest out over the floor. He hangs his head between his shoulders, and sighs deeply, “Baekhyun, are we free to go?” 

The doctor looks warily at Yixing, then slides his eyes to the clock on the wall above them. It’s two a.m, Yixing realizes. He doesn’t know what day it is. “I should clear out this room for more patients.” Baekhyun finally says. “It  _ is _ Saturday night. The drunk mistakes will start coming in soon.” 

Sehun nods his head, and stands up, offering a hand to Yixing. He supports most of the man’s weight on one of his shoulders, and half-carries, half-walks him towards the door. Yixing’s feet drag on the floor. His limbs feel leaden. 

“For the record, I think this is a terrible idea, for both of you.” Baekhyun remarks. His pale face is grave. Sehun looks at him a moment, drags his eyes across the features, the emotions laid out over his countenance, and shakes his head. He pushes open the small urgent care center’s doors, and takes Yixing into the frigid night. 

They don’t talk on the way out of one of the worse parts of town, back to the new developments, Sehun’s apartment. Sehun’s hands are tight on the steering wheel, and his jaw occasionally clenches. There’s no traffic for him to be mad at, so Yixing knows it’s him. 

They enter the apartment, and fall heavily onto the living room couch. Yixing glances at the table. Breakfast is still there, room-temperature and spoiled. He’d overdosed on Thursday morning. He’s been in Baekhyun’s care, under the influence of the injection, for three days. It sickens him. Did Sehun ever come back here? Or did he sleep at Baekhyun’s, curl up in a vinyl chair and wait for Yixing? He looks how Yixing used to, when he lived off instant coffee and three hours of sleep a night. He looks hopeless, defeated. 

“I’m sorry.” Yixing offers. He means it, but he can’t get his voice to cooperate with him, can’t push sympathy into the words. “I am.” 

“Sorry that you did it, or sorry that you got caught?” Sehun wipes a hand down his face, pulling at his lower eyelids and distorting his features. “Because I think you’re the latter.” 

Yixing bites his lip, not able to lie. He  _ is _ sorry he got caught, but more sorry that Sehun was there, that he cared enough to catch him at all. “I’m sorry that you found me. I’ve done nothing but cause you pain in the short months I’ve known you.” He means it, sadness creeping into his words like spilled water seeping into a rug. “I was trying to escape.” 

“Why?” Sehun asks. His face is an open book, but one with blank pages. Yixing can read him so clearly, but there’s nothing  _ to  _ read. He’s just… empty. Waiting to be filled by someone else’s words, someone else’s feelings. 

Yixing’s shoulders tighten. He’ll tell the truth. Death isn’t here to stop him. A little bit of his worry is already dissipating, a fact which he can’t decide between labeling as a good or bad thing. “I know too much.” He settles on leading with. “There’s this group- the Organization- They control almost all of the world as we know it. They’re in on everything; the government, big businesses, the medical industries. They have eyes on everyone in the country and They won’t stop until they have complete control. They’re after me because I know too much about Them and Their workings. I see Their agents. They aren’t human. They’re the ones that follow me around, poison my food. And I can’t take the pills because the Organization is in on the pharmacies too.” 

“And the Organization- did it tell you to kill yourself?” Sehun is trying to understand, but his open face is only full of confusion. His own personal truths, what he knows and accepts about the world around him, do not align with Yixing’s, or what he’s saying. Sehun can’t understand where Yixing is coming from unless he entirely changes his beliefs on how the world around him runs. 

“No. Death- Death that I talk to- helped with the idea. It’s been helping me avoid the Organization ever since it became part of me. It was the one that helped me buy the pills and decide to take them.” Yixing tries to explain. He feels a pang of loss at the realization that Death might not be coming back. Whatever Baekhyun  _ really _ injected him with has taken Death away, quite obviously. 

“You want death back, but it’s the thing that tells you to hurt yourself?” 

Yixing scratches the back of his head, dragging his blunt fingernails through his scalp. How can he make Sehun _understand_? “No, Death just helps me. I would not have lived this long had Death not been around to protect me from the Organization.” 

“You would not have lived this long had you listened to Death and not received life-saving hospital care, either.” Sehun tries to make a point. Yixing can’t process it. His blank face must show enough, because Sehun sighs, and tries to move on. “You know, you aren’t the only one affected by this. You’ve grown close to me, and when I thought you were going to die-“ He can’t finish, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and breathing deeply. 

“The longer I lived the harder it would have been to leave you.” Yixing tries to console him, to justify his actions. “The Organization would have hurt you, too, to try to get to me- Sehun…” The final words come out as a whisper. “They would have hurt you because I care about you.” 

The words do not have the effect on Sehun that Yixing thought they would. Yixing believed- hopefully- that Sehun would  _ get it _ . That he would realize that Yixing was doing the right thing, that he was protecting himself and protecting Sehun. In love, one has to make sacrifices. Yixing would have watched Sehun from above. Sehun should have understood. 

Instead, Sehun’s face darkens. “You care about me.” He says slowly, a dead flatness to his voice. “You care about me, so you were going to hurt me in the worst way possible?” His voice is shrill, rising into a yell at the end. Yixing tries to interject, holds out his thin hands to try and placate Sehun, but the younger stands up, stalks over to the corner and picks up the old guitar. “This was my boyfriend’s.” He says. He puts it down carefully, and sits on the floor beside it, turning his back to Yixing and staring at the wood. “Chanyeol’s. He and I had been dating since high school. Four years.” He says it clinically, with the detached sympathy of a doctor delivering a deathly diagnosis. 

Chanyeol. The name that Baekhyun had mentioned at the urgent care clinic. 

“Why-“ Yixing begins, but Sehun holds up a hand.

“He told me he cared about me, too.” Sehun murmurs. “Even in his suicide note, he told me he loved me. That he did it for me, so that I could find someone better than him. He killed himself because he didn’t think he was worthy of my love, Yixing. He thought he was doing it for me, so that I could live happily.” He turns, so he can just barely make eye contact with Yixing out of the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t save him, Yixing. I knew he was depressed, but I couldn’t help him. I didn’t make him go to therapy, I didn’t help him remember his pills… It was my fault. He did it because of me.” Sehun takes a deep, shuddering breath in, and holds it. His cheeks puff outwards, and he exhales heavily. He looks empty, the shell of a man that’s long worked through his emotions but is still taken over by how much he really  _ feels _ each time. 

“I’m sorry.” Yixing says. He means it this time. Sehun does not deserve to suffer, does not deserve to have had to face loss so great as that. Sehun, who Yixing just wants to protect. Sehun, who Yixing would die for. 

“You might be sorry about Chanyeol, but it’s not enough.” Sehun says slowly. “You have to be sorry enough to promise me you won’t ever try to kill yourself again. You have to be sorry enough to get better for me. To do- to do  what you can to take care of yourself.” His voice is strong, but it still wavers. Yixing sees through him in that moment, just how fragile he is. The man- boy, he looks so young and scared, yes, boy- in front of him has been through too much. The loss of someone like Chanyeol- Yixing can’t imagine it, and he almost repeated the action. Made Sehun go through that type of suffering  _ twice _ . He won’t pretend that he means as much to Sehun as Chanyeol obviously did, but Yixing… he hopes he’s close. Knows he’s close, because of how Sehun had responded with such pain.  

Yixing looks at the floor, the thin grain of the light wood. It swims in front of him, obscured by tears that gather in his eyes. Yixing doesn’t need to get better. There’s nothing to get better from, unless the injection he’s being forced to take magically cures him of his knowledge. It’s already taken Death away- it probably will take away Yixing’s knowledge. Could it be called a cure? Yixing… it would mean him forgetting everything, losing everything he’s learned to be true about the world around him. How he’s lived for the majority of his life, gone. Is it worth it? To please Sehun, to take proper care of him, can Yixing fall into a state of sedation, unawareness of the world? The Organization has Their ways of doing it. Yixing is sure They can make him forget, make him lose his power of knowing through the medications that Baekhyun and the psychiatrist, Joonmyeon, are sure to pump into Yixing’s veins. 

Yixing’s life and suffering go hand and hand. There’s no way for him to pretend that it’s easy, no way for him to finitely say he doesn’t wish it was different. But now that his eyes have been opened, can he ever close them again without the cursing feeling of regret, or that he’s missing something so incredibly important? If whatever drugs that Yixing takes truly make him forget, how could he live knowing, just barely, that there is more? 

But to live- to live, Yixing may have to do this. To live, to love Sehun, Yixing might have to give up the knowledge he holds dear. 

It’s another state of uncertainty. Without Death to say what Yixing is feeling for him, he can’t tell what he truly wants, how he truly feels. He’s overcome with his feelings, both the good, the pure, for Sehun, and the evil, the fear of losing his place in the world. What would Yixing be without his knowledge? What is he now, now that Death has left him, and the creatures that follow him grow weaker by the hour. 

But for Sehun, maybe he can do it. 

“My next injection comes tomorrow, right? Four days after the first?” 

Sehun looks up, snaps his head to face Yixing. “Yes.” After a brief pause, a look of apprehension comes over his features. “You’ll take it willingly?” 

Yixing tries to smile, but the cold fear that grips him turns it into a grimace. “I’m going to try. For you.” 

Sehun tearfully reaches for him, pulls Yixing into a hug. He’s just as warm as when they first met; his body radiates heat that thaws Yixing’s core and relaxes him into Sehun’s arms. He can live for this. For Sehun. He can live, can forget, to feel the warmth of Sehun’s hugs, to watch his eyes curve when he smiles, to hear his laugh. To share breakfast and read his books, play Chanyeol’s guitar for him. Yixing can live for this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment and let me know what you think! all that's left is the epilogue!


	4. fin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no warning here unless you're afraid of happy endings

Yixing does take his injection. Baekhyun rolls up his sleeve and pierces a giant needle into his shoulder, remarking all the way in his snide little voice that he thought he would have to tie Yixing down. The injection hurts, and makes his arm feel funny the rest of the day. 

He doesn’t feel anything right away. Joonmyeon, when he meets him the next day, explains that ‘symptoms,’ (which they’re calling Yixing’s knowledge and experiences), can take time to reduce. They might even disappear entirely. The thought scares Yixing, but when he voices it to Joonmyeon, the man just laughs, a light, practiced sound. 

“You’ll be surprised by how fulfilling life can be without schizophrenia.” Joonmyeon says. Yixing doesn’t believe him. 

It’s slow, the change from paranoia to freedom. It takes a lot of therapy, a lot of time. Yixing feels his world collapse on him, debris piling on his shoulders and pulling them down. He thinks about suicide, some days, and shamefully pushes the emotions down when he realizes he’s caught in them. 

Sehun is with him the whole way. Every step Yixing takes, Sehun cheers him on. It starts with things as simple as taking a shower. Sehun has to drag him at first, wash his back for him and make sure he doesn’t get in with his socks on. But soon enough, Yixing gets out of bed on time. He washes himself, but still asks Sehun if he wants to shower together. Yixing cooks food for himself, and for Sehun, and washes the sheets and windows. He helps Sehun with plot ideas for his writing, contributing his opinions when Sehun is still fighting over how to make Jongdae and Kyungsoo fall in love. Yixing functions. More than that, actually, he lives. 

Yixing goes outside. He breathes in the rain that just barely straddles the line between a storm in late March, and the first Spring showers of April. He doesn’t walk with his shoulders hunched and his eyes darting, watching for the agents that lurk around him. He actually enjoys the outdoors, stops in at coffee shops for himself and Sehun, picks up bagels from a cafe by the apartment. He feels… lighter. Winter is ending, and Yixing no longer lives in the shadows of his paranoia, lives to please the voice of Death. He’s living for himself now, doing what he needs and wants to do and doing it well, doing it happily.  

He accepts his illness, eventually. With his fears, knowledge, gaining more holes in their previously solid foundations, he can’t help but notice they almost childish absurdity. He starts using his phone again. An old, cracked-screen iPhone 3, but it works. It does the job, and Yixing is finally connected. It’s a big step for him. He’s never been able to use it without fear, without thinking, terrified, that the Organization is tracking him. 

Yixing knows his limits, too. He doesn’t visit his old conspiracy forums, doesn’t watch the news too closely. He stays out of his head, in a way, and ignores the simmering paranoia that still troubles him from time to time. He can do this, for Sehun. Sehun deserves someone who can be fully present, who can differentiate the lines between real and made-up. Yixing is coming close to this. He is learning more and more about his illness, spending more time in therapy with Joonmyeon, making up for all the sessions he missed while he was in a supposed psychotic break. 

By his third injection, a month after the first two, Yixing feels freer. 

Of course, the illness still cooks under his skin, in his head. He still feels eyes on him sometimes, sees glimpses of the creatures in his vision. Yixing notices small things, like strangers that look at him for too long or follow him too closely. He’s working on it, and although Joonmyeon says that he’s had patients that recover completely, Yixing’s own research has concluded that he might struggle with the little things for the rest of his life. But they’re just that- little things. Compared to what Yixing had dealt with before, this is a huge burden off his shoulders. 

Even when he gets a new job, as a host at a diner down the street, and makes enough money to move out, he doesn’t. Yixing actually breaches the idea to Sehun, saying that he’s probably overstayed his welcome in Sehun’s spare bedroom, but the younger man looks at him like he’d suggested that fish could dance. 

“Now why would you move out?” Sehun asks simply. 

Yixing shrugs, then, realizing with a curl of pleasure in his stomach that Sehun might need him as much as he needs Sehun. “It was just a thought. I’ve been living off you for months now.” 

“You can start paying rent, then.” Sehun says, looking over his laptop screen to wink at Yixing. “I want you here, for what it’s worth.” 

Yixing’s heart does something funny, and he decides to hold Sehun’s hand, even though he’s typing. He can take a break, probably. Sehun’s hand is warm and long-fingered, dry just enough to be a little leathery against Yixing’s admittedly clammy palms. It feels right, to hold it. Without intention, without meaning. It’s just a connection, a link between two people. 

Sehun looks at Yixing, really sees him, rather than a quick glance up from the monitor. “I’ve made Jongdae and Kyungsoo fall in love.” He says. 

“How?” Yixing asks. “Weren’t they already in love, but just didn’t know it?” 

“Yes,” Sehun amends. “Yes, they were. But for it to be known, Jongdae had to put himself into great danger. It made Kyungsoo realize just how in love he was, and finally gave him the strength to tell Jongdae. That- that he loves him. He said it the minute after Jongdae woke up from his bullet wound. It was a misguided action, too.” Sehun adds. “Kyungsoo was never in any danger; he had a bulletproof vest. But Jongdae still tried to take a bullet for him.” 

“What did Jongdae say?” Yixing asks, finding himself smiling. “Did he fall into Kyungsoo’s arms, beg for a kiss?” 

“I haven’t actually written that yet.” Sehun grins at Yixing, a bright smile that shows his white teeth and crinkles his eyes into crescents. 

 

—- 

 

It’s a Spring day, the first really warm one of the year, and Yixing and Sehun decide to go for a picnic. It’s a weird endeavor- Sehun isn’t big on the outdoors and Yixing is allergic to pollen, but the day is too beautiful to try and absorb only the filtered sunlight through Sehun’s kitchen windows. 

Yixing decides to cook this time, and packages up enough comfort food to feed a small family. Or maybe a large one. When Sehun comments, Yixing pats the side of his face with an oily spatula and tells him he eats like a monster. Sehun laughs because it’s true, then realizes the spatula has touched him and shrieks about the oil giving him acne. Yixing rolls his eyes because Sehun isn’t a hormonal teenager anymore, and he barely ever gets pimples. 

There’s a park just two blocks away from Sehun’s apartment, a small place taken over by the neighborhood and improved years ago when an old pawn shop had been razed to the ground for some shady reason. It’s just big enough for a small lawn and a tan bark pit with a play structure, and a thin, winding path through scattered flower beds. Sehun and Yixing spread out a blanket on the grass, where the sun peeks through the tall buildings that box in the park, and revel in the warmth. 

The food comes out quickly, but Yixing spreads himself out over Sehun’s lap even faster. Sehun sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, then smiles to himself, picking up a tomato sandwich in one hand and scratching his fingers through Yixing’s hair with the other. Yixing, despite the angle, opens his mouth for a bite and almost chokes when he tries to swallow it. 

He recovers, and Sehun and he fall into a companionable silence. There are a few birds in the short, sapling trees of the park, and they chirp out quiet song as they flit between the branches. A few shrieking children enjoy the playground nearby, but they giggle more than they scream, and that’s good enough for Yixing not to be too disturbed. 

“I never expected this.” Yixing finally says, an odd feeling of sentimentality washing over him. “You. Me, like this. Spring, even. For a while I didn’t think I was going to live past New Years.” 

“What if this- today- is our New Years?” Sehun asks, his hand stilling in Yixing’s hair. “We’re close enough. I’ve always thought that the year really begins with spring, not some random date in the middle of the winter.” 

Yixing thinks about that. Winter is just now ending, the cold vanishing just like his psychosis. Everything has begun to thaw out, people have become friendlier in the mornings, and the small animals have come back out into the world. Spring really is a new beginning, and Yixing has finally been able to begin with it. He’s a new person, different than he’s ever been before. There is no defining moment, no switch that flipped, but it happened, somehow. If he were to look back at himself when he first met Sehun, or any time before then, for that matter, Yixing would not see the person he is now. He would see a wounded animal, some shell of a human that needed to be patched and filled with something to give it warmth. He’s different now, miles past who he used to be. 

What if this is a new beginning? For himself, for Sehun, for his new life and his newfound peace? 

“I’d like that, I think.” Yixing replies. He opens his mouth for a piece of the fried egg Sehun takes out of the sandwich. “A new year as a new person, right now.” 

“Happy New Years, then.” Sehun smiles. His face looks anticipative for a moment, the way he gets when he working up his voice to say something risky. “Have you ever had a New Years Kiss?” 

Yixing feels some heat in the tips of his ears, his heart quicken just a fraction. 

“No.” He says, sitting up, facing Sehun. Sehun puts the sandwich down. He’s looking unabashedly at Yixing’s lips now, and Yixing feels something in himself, a new type of voice, something soft and tender and safe, tell him that this is right. Kissing Sehun is right. 

“Me neither.” Sehun grins. 

Yixing lets Sehun close the gap between their faces and press their lips together. It’s a gentle kiss, like the first leaf unfurling from a seedling flower. Sehun tastes like the sandwich he was just eating, and it’s a little eggy but Yixing probably tastes the same, so he can’t complain. He’d never complain. He’s kissing Sehun, kissing the man he’s slowly but surely come to love. 

Sehun’s hand, warm and steady, gently traces along Yixing’s jaw, and Yixing sighs, pressing his palms against the tops of Sehun’s thighs to steady himself. They pull away for a moment, and laugh. 

“We taste like sandwich.” Yixing finds himself giggling. 

Sehun wipes his mouth. “Still,” He says, “I think that was the best way to start the new year.” 

Yixing can’t help but agree. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for reading this! i really hope you can comment or hit me with a kudos to let me know i didn't write this just to be ignored you know?   
> talk to me any time at btsdadd or whyjaehwan on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> oh i feel like i should mention this: i am schizophrenic. what i write here is the least messy way i have found to write about schizophrenia. no two people experiemce the illness in the same way, and my own case is atypical in that i am high funtioning and dont experience too many negative symptoms (i'm a postive guy if you know about what that means) as well, hearing voices and having hallucinations can be near constant, but i didnt want to confuse you readers by injecting random conversations and voices other than death's into the story. they would be too distracting (and god, in real life they are So distracting)   
> thanks for reading!


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